By default, ActiveState does not include a compiler and compiler tools with their ActivePerl installation. As such, you can only install pure Perl modules from CPAN and not those modules that need to be compiled (such as XS modules).

I'm going to assume that you're using a 32-bit version of ActiveState's ActivePerl. Here's what I would recommend trying. Use the PPM utility to install MinGW and dmake from ActiveState's default repository for your Perl installation. Once you have those installed, you can then install modules from CPAN that need to be compiled. In your case, you should be able to open a command prompt and type cpan install DBD::JDBC to install the DBD::JDBC module.

If you're using a 64-bit version of ActivePerl, that's a bit more complicated and I'm not sure I can really guide you through that process. If you are on a 64-bit Windows XP and really need 64-bit Perl, my personal recommendation would be to move to Strawberry Perl, which comes with a compiler and compiler tools.

When putting a smiley right before a closing parenthesis, do you:

Use two parentheses: (Like this: :) )
Use one parenthesis: (Like this: :)
Reverse direction of the smiley: (Like this: (: )
Use angle/square brackets instead of parentheses
Use C-style commenting to set the smiley off from the closing parenthesis
Make the smiley a dunce: (:>
I disapprove of emoticons
Other